Frack wastewater a threat to South

Thursday

Jan 3, 2013 at 8:59 AM

In January 2003, two tanker trucks in Rosharon, Texas, unloaded oil and gas wastewater,

Erica GiesGuest Columnist

In January 2003, two tanker trucks in Rosharon, Texas, unloaded oil and gas wastewater, disposing of it deep underground in a so-called “injection well.” The pouring of the water into the well released flammable vapors, and when one of the idling trucks backfired, the cloud ignited, killing three workers. Seven years later, thousands of gallons of polluted wastewater that had been injected underground in Rosharon burbled back to the surface.Deep disposal of industrial waste has been common practice in the U.S. since the 1930s and was widely considered to be safe. More than 150,000 active injection wells dot the nation, absorbing 2 billion gallons of waste daily from the oil and gas, chemical, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries, according to the EPA, which supports the practice as a way to protect soils and surface water from contamination.Injection wells currently underlie at least 32 states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, California, states on the Gulf Coast, in Appalachia, and around the Great LakesBut as the incident in Texas, and similar events in Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma and California show, this pollution may not stay down. The injection wells used are mostly old oil and gas drill holes; they have no container at the bottom to trap waste. Thousands of injection wells are now leaking, bringing chemicals and waste to the surface or into shallow aquifers reports ProPublica.Of particular concern are injection wells that are now disposing of huge amounts of wastewater from natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells across the country.Drilling companies use an average of 5 million gallons of water per “frack” to crack apart underground bedrock and release natural gas. Into that water they mix chemicals — biocides to kill bacteria, scale inhibitors to clear pipes, and lubricants to ensure smooth machinery operation. They also add proppants — tiny particles of sand, quartz or ceramics to hold underground fractures open, allowing gas to flow up to the surface.The problem is that some of this contaminated water flows back to the surface too, along with added contaminants picked up deep underground, such as naturally occurring salts and radioactive elements.Companies dispose of this frack wastewater differently depending on region, though each method is problematic. In the South, Midwest, and West, injection wells are standard practice. In the Northeast, wastewater is disposed of in three ways: It is trucked to Ohio for dumping down injection wells; or processed at municipal sewage treatment facilities and then piped into local rivers; or treated onsite and reused in fracking.Wastewater disposal underground is popular because it’s typically cheaper than treating or recycling. But now that injection wells have been shown to cause surface water pollution, the practice should be carefully reconsidered. Injection wells also forever deprive drought-prone areas of the nation of trillions of gallons of invaluable fresh water.When selecting disposal alternatives, Southern regulators should recognize that water treatment is no silver bullet solution, either. Municipal plants were designed to treat sewage, not radioactive frack water, and those materials can pass straight through into local waters. Chemicals in frack water can also kill the beneficial bacteria used in standard sewage treatment plants, making those facilities less effective.Another approach is for gas companies to treat wastewater onsite and reuse the water in future fracks. However, this can be energy intensive and costly. Gas companies also sometimes sell the byproduct – a super salty waste called brine that contains heavy metals and other pollutants – to state transportation departments to melt highway snow in winter and suppress dust in summer. This use conveys salts and chemicals to waterways via runoff, and should be discontinued.Costs to clean water tainted by fracking — whether injected underground, treated and dumped or reused — are currently being externalized by oil and gas companies, with cities and states, and ultimately us — the taxpayers — picking up the tab. Toothless federal and state laws and industry exemptions to environmental laws have so far failed to address the problem.People tout natural gas as a cheap fuel, but that is faulty logic that fails to add in water cleanup costs. When proper accounting is done, we may discover that natural gas is simply not cost-effective – or environmentally friendly – and that it is time for the U.S. to pursue other energy options.

Freelance reporter Erica Gies has been published by The New York Times, Forbes.com, The International Herald Tribune, Wired News, Grist, and E/The Environmental Magazine. To comment, write to scherer@blueridgepress.com ęBRP 2012.

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